


Pressure

by catholicschoolgirl



Category: One Direction (Band), The 1975 (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Drug Use, Infidelity, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 17:43:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1696904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catholicschoolgirl/pseuds/catholicschoolgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Harry was always trying to test the thing they'd had, anyways, always waiting for the inevitable collision at the end of the crash course. Zayn knew this. But Zayn hadn't been anticipating a test like this one."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pressure

**Author's Note:**

> I sat down to write a Zayn/Harry/Matty threesome as a productive way to avoid working on my other fics but ended up writing this instead, sorry. Written in literally half an hour, unbetad, super stupid and self-indulgent.
> 
> Title from The 1975 song of the same name.

Zayn knew it was a cliché, but it went something like this – friends with benefits, a comfortable body and familiar breaths lulling him to sleep on nights spent in unfamiliar hotel beds. And yes, it wasn't supposed to mean anything, and yes, it was just supposed to be a convenient arrangement, something to do when a girl in Australia turned them down and they turned to each other. Two boys indulging in urges that might have otherwise gotten them into trouble. That was _it_. There were no feelings involved. _It didn't mean anything_.

And it remained meaningless. It didn't mean anything when Zayn would send him cross-faded texts at three in the morning, just like it didn't mean anything to Zayn when the texts went unanswered. It didn't mean anything when he turned away like he was scalded when Zayn first brought Perrie around as his official girlfriend, and it didn't mean anything when he clawed at Zayn's bicep as though he could remove the ink there through sheer will. And it didn't mean anything when Zayn pulled him into a sunny Florida hotel suite that felt much more like a tomb without anyone else to share it with, “This has gotta be the last time, babe,” a promise Zayn didn't even want to keep. Everything was meaningless, everything was cliché, but Zayn was willing to live with the denial. Anything to keep up with the dream he was slowly making a reality – successful beyond anything he had ever imagined, a beautiful pop star girlfriend, a house, some pets. What he had with Perrie – that was the relationship with meaning, here. This thing with Harry – it was just a fling. A two-year, protracted, emotionally draining fling.

It was a cliché, but that's exactly how it went.

Until Zayn turned on his phone after a very relaxing vacation with his fiancee and realized that shit had gone to hell while he had been living in denial.

 

There was really only so much stupidity one human being could take. Deep down, rationally, Zayn could recognize this. And deep down, rationally, Zayn knew that this was a relationship he was steadily wrecking, and Harry was always trying to test the thing they'd had, anyways, always waiting for the inevitable collision at the end of the crash course. Zayn _knew_ this. But Zayn hadn't been anticipating a test like this one, hadn't anticipated turning his phone on and realizing that Harry had bunked off with Matty Healy of The 1975 of all people. Zayn's first thought was that it had to be another publicity stunt, something from a media meeting that Zayn had slept through, but the grainy paparazzi photos dashed those hopes. Zayn knew that Harry was in Los Angeles writing, even though Harry hadn't explicitly told him as much – hardly told Zayn anything, these days, really – and some pap caught Matty and Harry holding hands as they ducked through the back entrance of some new restaurant. Matty looked exhausted – was still in the middle of a crazy American tour, but Zayn recognized the look on Harry's face, the doe-eyed, fond expression Zayn had fallen asleep to more times than he could count.

Zayn tried to tell himself that it didn't mean anything. The pictures didn't mean anything, and his feelings, that roiling jealousy in his gut – that didn't mean anything either.

 

Zayn didn't even know what to do, how to cope with this newest development. So he turned his phone back off and waited a few days, giving time for everything to pass. For their team to come up with ways to keep Harry and Matty apart, for the hysteria to die down. For things to go back to normal, whatever that was. But it didn't go like that. Harry and Matty just seemed to shrug at all of the attention, rolled with the press field day without acknowledging it in any way, and Zayn kept waiting for some word from Harry that this was all some sort of mistake, that Zayn was missing something. When had Harry and Matty decided to hang out, let alone start dating? Why hadn't Harry told Zayn?

Zayn just couldn't acknowledge it. That you don't get to just string someone along for years, dangling the promise of something more _just_ out of reach, and expect for them to be content with scraps even as your arms tired of puppeteering. Harry wasn't seventeen anymore. And Zayn was out of excuses.

 

Perrie started to ask Zayn if everything was all right, if she had done something wrong, and Zayn just shrugged and said he was stressed before upending bottles of wine into his mouth. She was so great, so sweet, but she never really knew the right questions to ask. Harry always did, and that was part of the problem.

 

The tour started up again and Zayn honestly only ever saw Harry when they were on stage or when Harry was on the phone, presumably to Matty.

“Why didn't he ever tell me that they were dating?” Zayn asked one night, sitting around in Louis' hotel suite in the middle of America's heartland with a bottle of Jack Daniels and more weed than either of them knew what to do with.

“Because,” Louis said, face uncharacteristically sad. “He didn't want you to know.”

Zayn frowned. They had all promised each other, once, lying around in X Factor bunk beds when everything was still equal parts exciting and terrifying, that they would not keep secrets from each other. It had seemed important, then. A way to build trust. Zayn couldn't remember who broke that vow first, but figured his memory gap meant it was probably himself.

 

Backstage at the VMA's, Zayn was drunk enough to be brave, cornering Harry and yelling at some member of MTV's staff to get them some time alone in one of the holding rooms.

“Do you love him?” It wasn't the real question Zayn was asking, they both knew it.

Harry shrugged. “What does it even matter, now?” And it wasn't an answer but they both understood the subtext.

“You didn't talk to me,” Zayn hissed. “I had to find out everything from The bloody Sun.”

“What would you know,” Harry replied, voice cold. Forest green eyes so distant Zayn felt as though he was looking at them through a tunnel. “Having to find out about something important from the press.”

It was a point and they both knew it. “If you're punishing me – ”

“I wouldn't drag someone else into this just to get back at you,” Harry retorted, clearly offended. “I'm not you.”

“That's not fair.”

“You're right. It wasn't. _None_ of this is.”

The silence was so deafening Zayn was sure he would hear echoes of it in his nightmares. “What do you want me to do, Harry?”

“Beg me for it,” Harry said. “Beg me for forgiveness. Beg me to take you back.”

It was so still Zayn swore he could hear the blood coursing through Harry's veins from where he was sat across the room. Or maybe that was the pounding in his own ears, he wasn't sure.

 

Pride is such a messy thing. You're not supposed to beg for something that doesn't mean anything. So Zayn didn't. Even when every microscopic cell was screaming at him to break out of this entanglement of denial, to acknowledge the role he had played in orchestrating his own tragedy. That was more than he could do. He wasn't eighteen anymore – he wasn't brave. He wasn't willing to face the scary unknown world that being with Harry – fully, in every way that Harry deserved after years of being strung along – entailed.

So that was how it went. Harry collected his dignity and left Zayn alone with his own regrets, swirling thoughts and what-if's that meant absolutely nothing.

 

**Author's Note:**

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